All Forum Posts by: Jennifer McCollum

Greeting fellow Huntsvillian

I'm in the same boat but I'm meeting with a lawyer to finalize and craft my lease as well as have someone available for questions.  

There's a couple of ones available if you google but none that I'm 100% are approved and anointed, so to speak.  

Today's update.

Spoke with the city engineering department and confirmed the house is in the flood plain as of the 2014 re-mapping.  There is no existing elevation map for this location which also indicates it's never held flood insurance before.

She said it was likely given that the zone barely touches the structure that we could get a LOMA and be excluded from the high risk plain.  

To do this, it would require a $400 survey to establish an elevation map AND the lowest point adjacent to the zone would have to be higher than the designated flood plain.  

Likewise, if we were going to get flood insurance then the $400 survey would be required as well.

I have also verified that the seller's realtor knew about the re-zoning in 2014 because she gave estimates on the financial impact to someone who was in the new zone a mile away.  This is one of several highly unethical things she has done in this deal including trying to get the other offer to buy the home while we were under contract and having difficult negotiations over radon.

So.  I believe that when we are ready to sell this home in the future, we will pursue this course of action and attempt to have the LOMA removed.  

And for additional information, we are going to have a drain put into the lot since it sort of collects water in the middle (slight concave).  We need a permit from the city of engineering department but there is no cost to do so.  

@Mike Hibbs - if you look at the FEMA site map (I can't get it to load on work network), the blue (1% annual risk) goes halfway through the lot. It just touches the corner of the house. If you enter in the address on floodsmart.gov, it identifies it as "high risk" with mandatory insurance.

I'm waiting for feedback from the emails I've sent out today but may come back to you for more information about William Hill.  

I do think we're not going to be able to get out from under it based on how the contingency was written.  

My primary concern is about resale value and how much we will lose when we sell it down the road.  

And again, thank you.

@Mike Hibbs - Indeed.  Further research tonight indicates that the flood plain changed in 2014 for this house (Dellbrook off Oakwood) so it was probably at the same time you experienced it.  How did being in a flood plain impact your investor?

@Jeffrey H. - Thank you for your reply.  Tonight, I emailed for a flood insurance quote (for ourselves and to also see the cost on future buyers), emailed my insurance agent with the benign question of "What did your research show when you looked up this address in a flood plain?" and lastly, have tagged my realtor with the path ahead for undoing the sale.  

The flood plain literally touches the corner of the structure  so I am hopeful that perhaps this will somehow defuse this current situation.  It is also a somewhat positive fact that we just closed last Friday.  

I am hopeful tomorrow will at least provide some direction on what the future holds.

In the meantime, I am going to bed a bucket of sad.  Slightly more educated bucket of sad, but sad nonetheless.  

This is Alabama - buyer beware state.

It looks like the investment property we purchased is in the "mandatory insurance" flood plain - 1% annual risk. FWIW, cash deal.  

When I worked with my realtor to write in contingencies, I had listed that the property must not be federally required to have flood insurance.

The buyer and her agent (sisters) stated it was NOT in a flood plain.  

When I purchased insurance, the agent did not mention it.

During the entire time of this 6 week process, it was not mentioned.  

However, when I pulled the mail from the mailbox, there was a letter from the city from November 2015 where the property was in the flood plain and the FEMA website also has it at high risk.

Other than the fact that it's a trust no one situation and we should have asked ourselves, who would have normally been responsible for verifying this information?

Per title, I'm looking for legal and tax foundation books to assist as part of reference set.  We're *attempting* (much drama with the seller) to close next week on our first real estate rental property.  

Normally, the internet would suffice but given the depth and breadth of information impacting legal law for the state, I'd like to kill a few trees and get a book.  

NOLO has a fairly well reviewed book and does state that it focuses on the 50 states but I don't necessarily trust Amazon reviews.  

Any recommendations for either landlord law for Alabama or tax laws for landlording?

We're a strong market and have weathered the past economic fluctuations with ease.

Our economy is strongly supported by defense and science funding and so we were isolated from the rampant foreclosures as the real estate bubble burst.

We have had a housing boom and I think our supply was oversaturated in the outlying areas but we're rebounding.  

Hi there,

Closing on our first rental income property on Monday.  Currently working on structuring a lease, checking our legal rules and working on marketing.  I'm a full time supply chain analyst so this is a side project for us.